Welcome to patch 5.21, the one that's finally old enough to drink. You've heard it a lot by now, but we're nearing the end of our smaller patch cycles as Preseason work nears its conclusion - busting the doors wide open on the things you thought you knew about League of Legends.

But first, Riven nerfs.

If you look beneath you'll find similar content to 5.20 and 5.19. A bugfix for Caitlyn's basic attack desync (IT'S HAPPENING), and a few power-ups for our some of our less-potent void buddies (Cho'Gath, Kassadin) while we continue to trim down our high-performing outliers (Gangplank, Mordekaiser). This patch might not be flashy, but it's wiser and more responsible. Let's go with that.

That's all for us this time! As always, check out the content below to see the specifics on all the changes (and what Zilean puts into his bottles), and we'll see you next patch. By the time you're reading this, we'll be in the full swing of announcing our seasonal changes, so we'll have lots to talk about when we see each other next. Until then, may all your bugs be fixed, and all your basic attacks synced.

Patrick "Scarizard" Scarborough

Champions

Caitlyn mains rejoice: the Sheriff's basic attack animation should no longer de-sync from damage being dealt when Lulu (or Pix, to be more accurate) is in the game. We're pretty sure that was the only cause of the de-sync, but we'll be keeping an eye on Cait this patch to see if any outliers crop up.

In the meantime, go forth and last hit.

General

BLAME PIXFixed an issue where Caitlyn's basic attack animation sometimes de-synced from damage being dealt if Lulu was in the game

For dedicated Cho'Gath mains, Feast can be his highest high (nomming even the heartiest of meals) and his lowest low (endlessly playing catch-up on Feast stacks if he falls behind the curve). Adding extra bonuses to Feast's success case gives Cho bigger rewards for getting aggressive hungry, as well giving him the option to top off his already massive health pool once he's full.

R - Feast

FEAST STACKS ON CHAMPION KILL1⇒2

NEWLEFTOVERSKilling a minion or monster at max stacks will now heal Cho'Gath for 90/120/150 (doubled for enemy champions)

Gangplank's laning is as efficient as it is deadly, granting him guaranteed access to gold with little interaction available to his opposition. Sure, it just starts with a few harmless Q's for extra cash, but then it leads to a single barrel clearing the caster minions before ending in chain-barrels to vacuum entire waves. This nasty slippery slope of Parrrleys ultimately leaves GP swimming in silver serpents and big-ticket upgrades, out-statting anyone that gets in his way.

This chain of events feels pretty awesome when Gangplank's the one doing it, but often leaves his opponents scrambling to catch up. These changes provide a wrench to toss into his plans, forcing him to run out of gas (or life) for applying pressure to his farm-centric game plan. He'll still terrorize the seas (eventually), but now the responsibility of 'shutting him down' feels more realistic.

General

BASE HEALTH631⇒580

HEALTH GROWTH STAT79⇒82

Q - Parrrley

For being a late-game monster, Kassadin pays perhaps the highest price in terms of his weaknesses, often losing games outright before completing the items he needs to get rolling. We don't want to go overboard, but... here we go. Kassadin buffs.

This one's pretty simple. The experience sharing mechanic's been vital for Mordekaiser's success in a duo lane but the amount's clearly off - turning what was intended to help him survive against his ranged oppressors into something that only serves to further snowball Mordekaisers that get ahead. We're pulling back to strike a balance, seeing if we can maintain Mordekaiser as a viable pick without becoming the mandatory dragonlord he is at present.

General

MUCH BETTER THAN LORD OF DEATHTitle changed fromthe Master of Metal⇒the Iron Revenant. Thanks to NA summoner Veraska for the suggestion!

W - Harvesters of Sorrow

PENALTY FOR SHARING EXPERIENCE ON KILL0%⇒50%

R - Children of the Grave

Riven's a champion that's equal parts impressive and frustrating when she succeeds, turning the battle lines into a blur of knock-ups and danger pings, leaving her opponents without many options. For a champion whose 3 basic abilities are so powerful on their own, Blade of the Exile's cooldown's always been finely tuned in concert with her access to cooldown reduction. Now, however, with the growing popularity of things like cooldown runes and The Black Cleaver, it's never been easier for Riven to hit the 40% cap and start breaking the laws of physics.

Increasing the cooldown of Riven's ultimate won't move the needle too much once she reaches that point, but stretches enough of her engagement window to make a difference in the skirmishes and scraps Riven's face along the way to make-or-break her snowball.

R - Blade of the Exile

Recently Veigar's dreams of crushing his opponents have become grim reality. No longer falling short on delivering the damage, he towers above the competition as perhaps the hardest scaling AP champion in League. We like Veigar's curve of amassing farm and rising to notoriety over the course of the game, so we're clipping some of his bases to rely even more on his ability to stack Baleful Strike (and your ability to interfere with that) as a focus for his success.

Q - Baleful Strike

MAGIC DAMAGE80/125/170/215/260⇒70/110/150/190/230

W - Dark Matter

Zilean's passive is one of those ideas that's really neat in theory, but lackluster in execution. Manipulating experience is a slam dunk thematically, what with his wisdom and time-lord status, but ran into the same problems auras typically do - they either feel incredibly weak (even when balanced), or are tuned so you can feel their effects (in which case they're overpowered). Instead of dealing with the headache of an aura that affects an already-invisible strength (experience?), he's getting a brand new one: Time in a Bottle.

In essence, Zilean's time-bottle does the same thing as the previous passive, in the sense that it gives experience to allies nearby, but splits it into clear chunks that you and your allies can appreciate. Now Zilean players everywhere can feel cool about their contributions to a team - finishing a jungler's level so he can gank with his newly-ranked ultimate, or stacking one member of your time even higher to combine with Chronoshift for time-powered carry potential.

Lastly, we've got a bunch of changes to Time Bomb to make it feel much more responsive. They may look small in practice, but we dug in to solve a large number of player-reported issues (particularly associated with usability and visual clarity) so take a gander and let us know what you think. If you weren't the biggest fan of the Zileanaire, there's never been a better time to pick him up (we'll show ourselves out).

General

FLEXIBLENow has recommended items for both AP and support playstyles

NEWPassive - Time in a Bottle

Zilean bottles experience over time. When he has enough experience stored to finish an ally's level, he can right-click them to give both himself and his ally the amount stored.

COOLDOWN120 seconds

EXPERIENCE RATE2/3.5/5/6/12 every 5 seconds (at levels 6/11/16/18)

NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO USE THATTime in a Bottle cannot be used in combat.

Q - Time Bomb

WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOMBBombs attach from edge-to-edge instead of center-to-center. Functionality remains the same, but should feel more predictable (especially against larger champions).

YOU DROP THE BOMB ON MEBombs now attach to allies at further distances when the bomb first lands if there are no enemies near the bomb's landing area

THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A KABOOMFixed a number of issues around Time Bomb's animation timing and visual effects when tossing

"Detonation" Spells

This bug's been a hard one to track down, but was actually fixed back in 5.20 (not this patch!). In light of recent events, we figured it'd be prudent to let you know this one's already been taken care of on live servers. Detonate to your heart's content!

BUGFIXFixed a rare bug where spells that can be "detonated" after landing at a target location (ex. Gragas' Q - Barrel Roll, Lux's E - Lucent Singularity, Ziggs' W - Satchel Charge) could stop working for the rest of the game

Items

Fixed a sneaky bug where Scrying Orb had a smaller radius after levelling up.

VISION RADIUS400 at level 9⇒550 at level 9

Report System

Building off recent updates to the Instant Feedback system, we're making two major upgrades to the clarity and functionality of the report system. First, we're refining the total number of report categories down to seven, increasing accuracy by eliminating redundant report categories. Second, reporters can now select up to three categories when submitting a report in order to more specifically describe situations where a player displayed multiple offensive behaviors in game. (Keep in mind: selecting multiple reasons doesn't increase the severity of a report and false reports can lead to penalties.)

Bugfixes

Fixed an issue where certain files were being unnecessarily re-downloaded during patches

Upcoming Champion Skins

Patch 5.20 is set to include THREE new champion skins - Slayer Jinx, Slayer Pantheon, and Zombie Nunu! We'll have a full preview up once these new skin is released and available for purchase.

Slayer Jinx

1350 RP (On Sale for 975 at Release)

Slayer Pantheon

975 RP

Zombie Nunu

1350 RP (On Sale for 975 at Release)

New Summoner Icons

5.21 also includes a few new summoner icons!

First up are Zombie Brand and Slayer Pantheon themed icons.

We also have four new summoner icons for the four teams headed into the 2015 World Championship semifinals.

[NOTE: Remember, according to this post: "Players who own the 2015 World Champions’ team icon before the start of Finals will be rewarded with a bonus winner’s icon after Worlds is over." - these should be for that as 5.21 will be the last patch to live before Worlds ends and assets need to be made before hand even though only ONE TEAM will get the extra winner's icon!! ]

New Login Themes

This cycle includes two new login screens - one for the upcoming Zombie & Slayer skins and a second login for the World Championship!

Zombie Slayer Login

To go along with the upcoming Slayer and Zombie skins, we have a ghoulish new login!